What I Did
by violet-phoenix-rose
Summary: For the Revelation challenge; also goes along with another oneshot. Ginny has to tell someone her darkest secret...


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: for the Revelation challenge (yet another one by sick-at-heartxx). Also a companion piece to / extended segment of All I Can Do. I am SO unoriginal...

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I decided to risk it. It had been three days since it all ended, three days since so many people I'd cared about died, three days since the boy I loved had saved the world. As I pulled on a short-sleeved shirt, I hoped and prayed that no one would really look at my arms. God, I'd been such an idiot, but the problem with my chosen version of self-harm was that there would always be proof of it. As much as I hated them, as much as I wished I'd never made them in the first place, my scars were there to stay.

At the least, I hoped my mother wouldn't get the CHANCE to ask. She would probably panic and assume I'd tried to kill myself - not too far from the truth, mind you, but she'd be just that much more worried about me if she thought that, and she would never guess what had really happened. I didn't worry about what other people would think - it's not like they'd guess what'd happened either. Everyone who survived school that year and didn't fade away had a handful of scars, so no one would be the wiser about mine. The fact that they are all on my lower arms might raise an eyebrow or two, but no one would ever really know.

At least that's what I hoped for. As I slipped past groups of people, segments of the few dozen that were going to try to repair the school, no one noticed me at all. That was just as well - I wanted to fade into the background, wanted to taste what it was like to have as little an idea of what was happening as everyone else did.

Aimless - that was the word for what I was. I'd spent two days floating around already, but then again, so had everyone else. We were all broken people, recovering from things no one should ever have to survive, and that had changed us. I was no longer a sweet, innocent person - like everyone else, I would be haunted by memories for years to come. Unlike everyone else, some of the memories were things I'd done to myself. In the middle of a corridor, surrounded by people, I looked at my arms, saw the pain that had been so sweet at the time, and in my mind, I went back to the dreary fall day I'd first cut.

It had been an accident, in fact. For the heck of it, I'd been using a knife to cut some parchment off of a roll, and the knife had crossed my arm on its way across. For a moment I'd cursed myself over that - I was never that much of a klutz - but then I realized something. As I wracked my brain for a spell that would stop the bleeding, I realized that this feeling, painful though it was, was almost sweet. I'd been so desperate to feel something, anything, that I'd regularly cut myself for a few months.

I remember when I stopped, too. It was the day I went home for Christmas break. Between the hell I was sure to catch if I got caught - and that was always something to worry about with my family - and the fact that I was reeling from seeing my best friend get yanked off the train, it just didn't seem right anymore. It didn't seem right after the holidays either, and I started to regret it.

"What happened to you?" someone asked. I blinked and saw the boy I loved, staring intently at something. I followed his gaze not to my face, but to my arms. For a second, I panicked - not now, of all times! I was so stupid to think that wearing that shirt was a good idea. Some of the scars weren't even five months old, for crying out loud, and I should have known something like this would happen! I didn't expect him to be the one that noticed, but weirder things have happened to me.

Oh... oh God, it was a nightmare! I'd known that moment would come - someone, sooner or later, was bound to look at me and put two and two together - but not like that, never like that. I had never wanted that. No one was ever supposed to find out. But because it was me, someone had found out. I knew he would hate me if I told him why my arms were marked up - though someone more dense (one of my brothers, maybe) would mistake it for a cat attack or something, he was better than that.

"I did this," I said, though it was really more of a cross between a gasp and a sob. Faced with my own stupid mistakes, I had to be honest, to admit that I'd been so desperate, so alone. And as soon as the words left my mouth, it was as if a big weight had been lifted. No longer was I chained by the secret; no longer was I bound by the lies.

He didn't speak. He just stood there, thinking, trying to make sense of what I'd said and done. I knew, I just knew, that he was trying to come up with something to say, some way of telling me that he didn't care anymore. I was so wrong.

"I... I had to feel something," I said, sort-of gasping. Saying that much had been hard; if I had to explain details, I'd probably panic and run. I didn't want to do that, but I had a feeling I'd have to.

He still didn't speak, but I knew it was for another reason now. Now that he knew, he seemed to love me even more. Because I was so breakable, so impulsive, so desperate... I saw in his eyes that he still cared.

Never before had I loved someone more than I loved him now - because he didn't _care_. He didn't care that in my desperation, I'd had to hurt myself to feel alive. He didn't care.


End file.
